Dose of strict law – a necessity for national interest

 

Parliament recently passed the Immigration and Foreigners Bill, 2025. This bill will have far-reaching consequences in many ways. Union Home Minister Amit Shah, while speaking during the debate on this bill, said, “India is not a dharamshala.”

This statement itself clearly reveals many important issues including the Modi government’s purpose behind introducing this bill, the dimension of national interest and the consequences that the country has to face because of the infiltration. Our country got independence in 1947.

Our country will celebrate the centenary of independence in another 22 years. India has faced many crises like terrorism, Naxalism, religious fundamentalism of minorities during the period of 1947 to 2025. The terrorism crisis among these has been fuelled by the continuous infiltration that country has seen since 1947.

This massive infiltration has posed a serious threat to the country’s external and internal security. Today many countries are troubled by the infiltration crisis. Many countries have started making stringent laws to prevent the influx of infiltrators. Many foreign nationals come to India for education, business, employment and research. But along with that, a large number of infiltrators infiltrate into India with the purpose of creating unrest in the country.

Since the last several years, we have been experiencing that the states of West Bengal, Jammu and Kashmir and the entire North-east India are on the verge of exploding because of the extensive nature of infiltration. The Congress, which was in power from 1947 to 1977 and from 1979 to 1989, never really understood the fearsome consequences of the infiltration crisis. The country had to pay the price for it for many years.

The Modi government has prepared this bill by recognising that this infiltration crisis will pose long term challenges for India in the future from the international perspective. This bill will allow the government to have up to date information of each and every foreign national entering the country.

The migration happening in our country for various reasons is not a separate matter, but it is directly or indirectly related to the different issues related to infiltration.

The central government will be able to keep a close eye on every foreigner entering India for various reasons. In terms of national security, it is extremely important for the government to have information such as citizen of which country is coming to the country and the reason behind it, how long will he stay in India.

This information will be available to the government because of this bill.

This bill has strict provisions to prevent infiltration into the country. One of the provisions in the bill is that if anyone is found using forged passport or visa to enter India, stay in, exit from India, he will be punishable with a jail term of 7 years and a fine of Rs 10 lakh. The bill has been drafted keeping in mind that infiltration and national security are two sides of the same coin.

It has been revealed that Bangladeshi and Rohingya infiltrators have instigated violent acts in many parts of the country. The forces and tendencies sheltering these infiltrators are within the country itself. It is the Modi government’s priority to eliminate these forces by using all its might. It is no more a secret that the infiltration in the country so far had a political backing.

The Modi government has decided to prevent the infiltrators without paying heed to its political consequences. A state of the art technology will be skilfully used for that. Drug smuggling takes place through infiltration. This causes many social problems in the country. Drugs are smartly used to create instability and unrest in the country. In the country there were laws against infiltration earlier as well, but those laws did not have provision of strict punishment for infiltrators. Generations of infiltrators have happily stayed in India by exploiting the loopholes of this law.

In the last 10 years, the Modi government has set up a large number of checkpoints to prevent infiltrators. There were 743 such checkpoints before 2014. By the end of 2024, the Modi government has increased this number of checkpoints to 2278. Earlier, a large number of Bangladeshi infiltrators used to enter India through Assam. But this infiltration has been curbed because of the Modi government and the BJP government in Assam. However, these infiltrators have got a red carpet route all thanks to the Trinamool Congress government in West Bengal.

The Bangladeshi border is 2216 km long, out of which 653 km long border has been fenced. The central government has repeatedly asked the West Bengal government to provide land to fence the rest of the border. However, the West Bengal government has time and again ignored this demand.

As a result, a huge number of Bangladeshi infiltrators are entering India through West Bengal. Bangladeshi infiltrators are spread all over the country.

Infiltrators had a free rein because of the lenient punishment provisions in the law. Now, infiltration will be restricted because of the strong policy of the Modi government. On the other hand, the Maharashtra government has decided to bring a Special Public Security Bill for internal security reasons.

This law will curb the Naxalite forces. Urban Naxalism has posed a major crisis of domestic violence not only to Maharashtra, but to the country as well. Urban Naxalite gangs are extremely active in destroying religious and inter caste harmony in the country. Urban Naxalite forces have constantly tried to create religious disharmony by using social media. There is no doubt that the Special Public Security Bill will be very effective in preventing these attempts.

 

(Article Pre-Published in Times of India Online – 31 March, 2025) 

Keshav Upadhye, Chief Spokesperson